Passages for Meditation

Swami Ramdas

The Central Truth

Forget not the central truth that God is seated in your own heart. Don't be disheartened by failures at initial stages. Cultivate the spirit of surrender to the workings of his will, inside you and outside you, until you have completely surrendered up your ego-sense and have known that he is in all, and he is all, and you and he are one. Be patient. The path of self-discipline that leads to God-realization is not an easy path: obstacles and sufferings are on the path; the latter you must bear, and the former overcome – all by his help. His help comes only through concentration. Repetition of God's name helps concentration.

Swami Ramdas was born Vittal Rao in Kerala, South India, in 1884 and took to the spiritual life when in his thirties. His long search for self-realization is vividly described in three of his books: In Quest of God, In the Vision of God (from which this passage was taken), and World is God (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1969, 1963, and 1967).